Dr. Karen Nyberg and Ann McCallum Staats

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Show notes

What happens when an astronaut takes a needle and thread to space?

In this episode, I talk with astronaut, engineer, and textile artist Karen Nyberg and author Ann McCallum Staats about their gorgeous new picture book, A Quilt of Stars: Karen Nyberg Stitches a Dream.

Buy the book: https://literaryaviatrix.com/book/a-quilt-of-stars/

Karen began dreaming of becoming an astronaut when she was eight years old, growing up in a tiny Minnesota town. That seemingly impossible dream eventually carried her to NASA, two spaceflights, and 166 days aboard the International Space Station. Along the way, she also carried something else with her: a lifelong love of sewing and textile art.

During her long-duration mission aboard the ISS, Karen brought fabric, thread, and needles into space. What began as a personal creative outlet eventually inspired an invitation to quilters around the world to contribute star-themed blocks to the Astronomical Quilt Block Challenge.

They expected enough for a quilt.

More than 2,400 blocks arrived from at least 30 countries.
Those individual pieces—each reflecting the hands, imagination, and experiences of the person who made it—became 28 quilts and a beautiful physical representation of something Karen experienced while looking down at Earth from space: we are individual pieces of something much larger.

Our conversation ranges from Karen’s childhood dream and path to NASA to the very real challenges of working in a spacesuit that wasn’t designed for smaller bodies. We talk about imposter syndrome, the decisions and disappointments that unexpectedly open other doors, and what it meant to help build the International Space Station.

But we also spend a lot of time talking about art.

Karen and I both grew up sewing, and I loved exploring the false boundaries we sometimes draw between technical and creative pursuits. Engineering requires creativity. Traditional quilting is deeply mathematical. A person doesn’t have to choose between being an engineer and an artist—or between pursuing an audacious dream and finding joy in making something beautiful with her hands.

Ann shares how Karen’s story grew from a chapter in her book High Flyers into a picture book of its own, and how illustrator Alida Massari brought the story to life on the page.

We also talk about the Overview Effect—the profound shift in perspective astronauts often describe after seeing our small, interconnected planet against the blackness of space—and Karen’s hope that A Quilt of Stars might give young readers a little glimpse of that perspective for themselves.

This is a conversation about space and science, but it’s also about art, possibility, connection, and what can happen when a little girl is allowed to believe that an impossible dream might not be impossible after all.